Category: Shark Finning

Cooked with special healthier chicken for many hours. Is it cruel? Is boiling a live lobster any less cruel?

Who is making a profit from promoting the story that sharks are a threatened species in the ocean? The information is now ten years old in most examples especially the video of a live shark being finned then dumped from a long line fishing vessel under power.

Grey Nurse sharks and Great White sharks (also known as White Pointer) have been protected and the populations are very good – and perhaps always were larger than were guessed to be.

Overfishing of fin fish around the world is leading to an imbalance with sharks outnumbering fish of equal size. Sharks are not as endangered as fish. Eat more shark? It’s already happening. Surimi is processed shark sold as crab sticks, fake lobster and fish balls.

The hazard of eating large shark products is toxic heavy metals in their body.

As for fining live sharks? Pointless as the body must now accompany the fins to market.

There’s a lot of out-of-date information circulating. Briefly:
1. Fishermen prefer to catch marlin, swordfish, tuna – high value products.
2. Sharks take the baits intended for tuna, marlin, on lines many kilometers long.
3. Sharks, unable to swim, then drown. Unable to swim, they drown, dead in 95% of cases.
4. So, what to do with the dead sharks? Throw them away? Process them for $2-3 kilo?
5. Many (or most) countries, by law, now make fishermen bring whole sharks home, fins attached.
6. Shark meat is processed into fake fish products, crab sticks, fish fingers etc.
7. Shark fins are just a bonus, (as compared with a large tuna) crazy to wast them.
8. A new bait is being trialed, a bait that tuna take yet is distasteful to sharks. It’s expensive.
9. Fishermen see many sharks offshore and sincerely believe there is no detrimental shortage.
10. There is a decline in all other fin fish, world-wide this is accelerating.
11. Shark diving companies would have you believe all of the above shark info is untrue.
12. Same applies to self-promoting marine ‘experts’. Easy to be interviewed speaking ‘doom and gloom’ info.
13. Bottom line at Taipei Shark Conference 2002 “We (scientists) should speak more often with fishermen to help with our research.